Front-end developers’ work makes all the difference in users’ experience of using your website. A good FE developer is always in high demand, even in times like now. At the time of speaking, there are more than 20.000 vacant positions for front-end developers, and that is only on LinkedIn. Despite what it might seem, there’s ever increasing focus on user experience, so the number of front-end positions is expected to grow. Official statistics from department of labor anticipate 23% increase in the next decade.

If you want to be one of those lucky enough to start a front-end career, read carefully and we will explain everything there is to know about starting a career in the front-end.

Necessary skills

As you probably know, every front-end developer needs to know three essential languages – HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These are three tools for building beautiful, well structured, and dynamic apps. Some front-end frameworks like Vue use HTML, so you need to familiarize yourself with it. Then there’s React, which doesn’t actually require you to use HTML, but its templating language JSX is very close to HTML. It is actually JavaScript, but the syntax looks like HTML. This gives you another advantage – you can easily include dynamic expressions in JSX, but let’s save that for later. It helps to know how to add new line between elements in React.

CSS is needed for styling apps. There’s nothing better to improve user experience than give visual cues in response to users’ actions. For example – if the user enters a wrong input, make the input field red, and maybe display a text that is red. React as well as Vue support dynamic inline styling. Vue even has syntax for setting conditional styles and class values. In React, you can use the classnames package to set complex conditions for styling.

React community has created a wide range of libraries for dynamic styling. Most popular is styled-components. Once you spend time, it’s easy to get the hang of and you will be able to dynamically style any elements. I would say knowing library like styled-elements will help you get a job as much as knowledge of CSS.

Besides the programming skills, a potential employer might also pay attention to your organization and communication. Most will expect to see that you can use Git, at least at a basic level. This isn’t too difficult and it will take you only few days to learn Git. Then you can use it in practice and maintain few projects on a Github to show that you can.

Interviewer might also look at the quality of your comments. When working in a team, it’s incredibly important to leave good comments and make your code readable for your fellow team members, so they can debug it or build on top of it. This is especially true for front-end frameworks where components are reusable. You need to have a clear structure in the component itself, and a clear documentation for how to use the component you created. Most likely the company will also have instructions on how to define interface for a component.

Acing the interview

Most interviewers ask about fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as whatever framework you specialize in. You can easily find questions for these three languages as well as your specific framework. Simply google ‘x framework front end questions’ and Google will give you lots of results. Based on personal experience, mastering answers to these will go a long way. It’s one thing to have an impressive portfolio, but mastering the fundamentals behind the library is a whole different thing.

Before practicing the interviews, its important that you understand the library itself. It’s pointless to memorize answers to front-end interview questions when you don’t understand the fundamentals. Let’s take React for example. There’s no use in memorizing the right way to use the useEffect in React if you don’t know basics like how state works.

Portfolio

Try to have a diverse portfolio to showcase your skills. Show your proficiency with JavaScript methods from ES5 as well as newer methods from ES6. The map() method is one of the most useful methods I use for dynamically rendering components in React. Same for other frameworks. Like you might need the filter() method to conditionally render components.

Also show projects where you maintain a repository on GitHub, and write accurate descriptions for commits. These things may seem trivial, but working alone is very different from working in a team. Your ability to work with Git also underscores how you’re able to work with others and organize your files.

Being able to implementing dynamic qualities will speak volumes. For example, I was asked to show examples of advanced styling. Fortunately I had one project where I added multiple classes in React.

Changing job market

The demand for technologies is always changing. It’s the same for web development specifically. About a decade ago, Angular was the most popular front-end framework for building web applications. Then it was gradually taken over by React. Needless to say, learning the most popular library gives you the best chance for landing a job.

The practices and patterns of use change as well. Initially, React was used straight as a JavaScript library. As of now, most React development happens with TypeScript. Its consistency allows React developers to build more reliable apps. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript. It will only take you a few weeks to learn it. If you’re going after jobs that require React or Angular for that matter, it doesn’t hurt to have a few portfolio projects involving TypeScript.

Final words

Starting a career in front-end development is not easier than it used to be, but it’s not as hard as some might have you believe. Remember to be proactive, send your CV and portfolio, and follow up on your approaches. Also consider alternative ways to get paid experience like freelancing. Finally, if there’s a team you really want to be a part of, don’t hesitate to send your application, even if there isn’t an opening. Team leaders could use someone motivated and willing to learn.